226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



raised without breast-milk, those who have been weaned too early 

 or too hastily, or those to whom, on account of the failure of the 

 mother's milk, other foods have been injudiciously administered. 

 Under other circumstances than these, children enjoy a complete 

 immunity." 



The artificial feeding of infants often results from physical 

 inability on the part of the mother to nurse them, and this in- 

 ability in turn is the result of defective heredity. " The mother 

 makes the child," and the mother's weakness ofttimes results in 

 the death of the child, or even of the children's children. 



When we turn to consider the merits of the different forms of 

 artificial feeding, we realize the intimate relation of improper 

 feeding to the next cause, namely, filth. Cow's milk, the most 

 common and generally advisable substitute for mother's milk, 

 when exposed to the air at a summer temperature, soon ferments 

 and develops a peculiar poison known as tyrotoxicon, which is a 

 most potent factor in the causation of cholera infantum. It is 

 also, says Prof. Lister, " a pabulum for all kinds of organisms ; 

 nearly all varieties of bacteria will live in it." In addition to this, 

 it often absorbs and becomes the carrier of various other forms of 

 filth, both organic and inorganic, all of which either directly or 

 indirectly increase the tendency to disease. These evil results 

 may be avoided, in a large measure at least, by the modern process 

 of sterilization of milk, whereby existing germs are destroyed, air 

 excluded, and fermentation prevented. 



But filth may be introduced in other ways than in milk or food 

 of any kind ; and, however introduced, its effects are always dis- 

 astrous. Says Mr. Simon : " Nothing in medicine is more certain 

 than the general meaning of high diarrhoeal rates. The mucous 

 membrane of the intestinal canal is the excreting surface to 

 which nature directs all the accidental putridities which enter 

 us. Whether they have been breathed, or drunk, or eaten, it is 

 there that they settle and act. As wine gets into the head, so 

 these agents get into the blood. There, as their universal result, 

 they tend to produce diarrhoea." 



In August, 1883, the health-officer of New Haven, Conn., in a 

 paper entitled " A Practical Argument for Sewers," reported the 

 following, which well illustrates the evil effects of impure air : 

 " There were forty-three deaths in New Haven from infantile 

 diarrhoea in July. The forty-three deaths occurred in thirty-two 

 different streets and in thirty-eight different, houses. But the 

 most remarkable fact is that thirty-four of the forty-three victims 

 were living upon streets in which there is no public sewer, and in 

 houses about which are still tolerated those beastly abominations 

 called cess-pools and privy-vaults. In most of the nine cases where 

 the houses had sewer connections, they were only for kitchen and 



